IVF Land on Surrogacy World

I am bored with this part of the pregnancy - since it has been our first worry free week - there is little for me to obsese about. So today we will share a story about the wolf. We have shared a story about the Mexican wolf and the Italian wolf. Now it's time for a Cherokee Indian story. One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside himself. He said, "My boy, the fight is between two wolves." That certainly got the boy's attention. "One is evil," the old man continued. "Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego." "What of the other, grandfather?" the boy asked. "The other is good," he said. "Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Serenity, Humility, Kindness, Benevolence, Empathy, Generosity, Truth, Compassion and Faith." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked h...

I am really slow on this update, but here are the pictures that matter: The is a zoomed in picture of Paco's heart beating. The red parts are his heart. The baby has a current beta name of Paco. This is mainly a creation of our surrogate, which shows that we don't need to see eye to eye on everything and can still get along. The heartbeat at the week 8 ultrasound is 167. This is very strong and means that Paco passed the heartbeat challenge with flying colors. On week 8 we measured 7 weeks 6 days and we are told that with an IVF pregnancy anywhere plus or minus 3 days is normal. Now we should have around 4 weeks of clear stress free sailing. The next main event for Paco is the Nuchal. He will win this by having a skinny neck. No fat neck babies for us. This week we killed the wolf.

Short answer for now. I didn't want to keep everyone in suspense. Baby doing very well passed the challenge with flying colors. We will add more details late tonight.

Tomorrow morning is the Heart Beat Challenge for our baby. I believe in competition, challenges, and having goals. And this is one of the first early tests that we need to win. Sometimes in life, you don't "want to win." You "have to win." And this is one of those moments. Besides you can't start winning to early in life. I believe that "success breeds success!" And that "one win leads to another." So it's time for our baby to start "being a winner." (Ya, I know, sports metaphors everywhere.) Now before you start thinking that I am one of "those Dad's". Trying to re-live my glory days through my child. Remember, that I was born in the stone age before 8 week ultrasounds and Heart Beat monitoring. So our baby will be praised or cursed on his own accomplishments. Not compared to mine. ("Cursed" is clearly not the correct word to use, but I will have to start writing for Women's Home Journal if I st...

Yes. We were first. The first USA couple to our knowledge that went to Mexico for Surrogacy with a USA surrogate to get pregnant. The have been a few other cases of surrogacy in Mexico. One couple from third country has a USA surrogate and did the transfer in Mexico City. But, that we know of where all 3 of us are from the USA. The first where none of us speak Spanish. And it was De Nada!!! And the first to share our story on the internet. So naturally, people question our choices. They attack our opinions. Question our values. At least in Mexico where Surrogacy is not common. They have agreed that it's legal and most people think that it's great, but a few question if it's moral. Mexico is a Catholic country. And the church doesn't approve. In the US, they want to know if it's safe, do they speak English, are they professional, is it legal? And were we comfortable in our choice of a clinic? Events in IVF land move fast. The people that don't live as infertile h...

The investigation continues......... Here are the very important results of my internal investigation about the state of our pregnancy. We have not seen a Dr. in the last 72 hours so this is not based on any new information from a licensed and trained medical expert. MY FINDINGS ARE BASED ON: Our reported numbers, the percentages, the heart beat, the bleed, the through the roof extremely High Beta numbers, Dr. Google, the fact that I have never carried a baby, and my complete lack of any medical training. With that being said - we have the all important discovery, findings, and my current made up beliefs. Due to the high beta number we started out as twins. Morning Sickness which didn't happen in the past with singleton's was in full strength due to the twins. The bleed was one guy moving out, not a tear in the lining. The Heart Beat numbers are within range and will be fine. With one baby the morning sickness will go away. I can be a nice guy again. No more "Bad Man...

Actually, we are now two days older since the start of the bleed. It appears through my 2nd hand report that we do not have any new blood - so we are out of the red - so to speak. At least for the moment. The way that the information flows around here is that Christy gets a text message in the morning with an update. This information is then relayed to me via Christy. Through this monitoring system we have the daily panty report. Now mind you - This is not the daily Panty check system that I ever envisioned that I would be part of. However, the focus of the situation is that we are back to No Bleed, is a Good Bleed. We have determined that for the 8 week ultrasound next week that the min. heart beat should be 149. At an increase of 3.3 beats per day we should be at 150. Borderline at best. When we had the last Ultrasound our heartbeat was at 124 at 6 w6d. At 124 we have a 70-90% chance of success. If we had a heartbeat under 120 at that time our success rate would have been 62%. We wil...

Christy will beat you. Nothing is guaranteed in pregnancy. At least we are mentally prepared if that's possible. You see ........... Hell has arrived.... And we are one with the wolf . We have a bleed..... a small one........ But, still a bleed. An ultrasound has been done. There is one baby.... The bleed is not near him. And small. He measures on pace at 6 weeks, 6 days. At 124 his heart beat is in range, but low. Our surrogate is on bed rest. Yes, we know...... You bled like a firehose for weeks and everything was fine for you. Well - we have our own story. And it didn't have a happy ending. So don't tell us it will be fine. You don't know that. Right now, for us - The proper response is Crepi il lupo "May the wolf die"

The Spanish phrase: In The Mouth of the Wolf.....Or "La boca del lobo" Sums up my current feelings. In Spanish it translates to mean: "In the Jaws of death." Before you freak out - there is no new news that warrants these feelings. As the saying goes "it's me, not you." You see.... despite the mounting evidence in our favor - We are still unable to accept that it is working 100%. . We are told "Your pregnant" and my response is: "Great! We now have an 82% chance of having a live birth." Not exactly the WHOOOO HOOOO!!!!!!!! response that people expect. We will just have to save that for September. And Christy says that I read too many blogs. I can't argue with that - I am just comforted by the fact that almost everyone I started reading about 18 months ago is either pregnant or already has a baby. There is good news mixed in with the bad. We need to have our success story now so that we can graduate with our class. However, we ar...

Christy explains the IVF and Surrogacy process that is available to US couples. I would like to explain how Surrogacy and IVF legally work in Mexico. Mexico does not outlaw surrogacy but they do not provide laws for it either. They do not have any laws for or against transferring embryos into a surrogate. Legally a baby born IN Mexico is the child of the birthing woman. This is how is it best arranged for the protection of the parents. A US surrogate is chosen from a surrogate legal state. California has the best laws in all of the US. The laws in California state that whoever is named in a legal contract prior to conception as the "intended" parent is the person or couple that will be granted all legal rights to the baby upon birth. In the rare case a surrogate wants to change her mind she is not allowed to in California as the parents were named in contract prior to conception. Once the surrogate is chosen legal contracts stating who is "intended" as the parents a...

Starting out our internet search for US couples that have gone to Mexico leads to a lot of DEAD ends. Literally...... To the point one couple emailed me recently saying My husbnd is concerned about the retrieval. You felt he was a great surgeon to put your wife out for retrieval. Its funny you mentioned it because everytime i could not find someone posting back after supposedly going to him, I had visions of him putting people to sleep and having them never wake up. This is what the media paints medical care out of the states as. I was releived when i saw that you guys actually came back alive and successful. So, at this point I am glad he is a legitimate doctor. The quality and standard of care was a valid concern of ours. Especially, when we were not doing IVF on ourselves, but bringing a 3rd person into a possible mess as our surrogate. When you read the posts online people always say that I am going to Mexico for IVF.... And then you never hear from them again. I'm thinking.......

Our message board breathed new life into a set of IP's. They need to do Microsort and in the US you can only do it as part of a study and due to their age they had been turned down. Well in Mexico there is NO age requirement and anyone can sign up with only a few requirements. The fee for Microsort is $1,200. What are the qualifications for family balancing? Couples who want to use MicroSort to balance the genders of their children must: • Be married • Have at least one child • Sort for the underrepresented gender in the family • Be negative for HIV, and Hepatitis B surface antigen and C antibody What are the qualifications for couples at risk for X-linked disorders? Couples who want to use MicroSort to reduce the probability of genetic disease transmission must: • Be married • Be a known carrier of an X-linked or X-limited disorder • Be negative for HIV, and Hepatitis B surface antigen and C antibody How does MicroSort define family balancing? Family balancing me...

Can anyone share information on how to ship embryo's internationally? I have two couples asking me to help and I have no idea except that a lot of couples going to India seem to have done it. Do you use FedEx, DHL, or a specialty service? What was the cost? Is there a lot of paperwork? Does it take a long time to set-up? I have one couple looking to ship from the US to Mexico. And another trying to ship from Mexico to Australia. Any advice would be helpful

As a couple that has been on the wrong side of a bleed - Let me tell you that they are not pretty or fun to deal with. In our first cycle we had one start in week 5 and slowly take out our twins. We were patiently waiting to get past that point so we could start to accept the pregnancy. Our 6th week started yesterday with no sign of a bleed. Christy gets the daily report every morning that we made it through another night and are at least temporarily safe to breath for the day. We have 13 days to our first ultrasound where we plan on counting heads for the first time on week 8. At this stage I feel that a big weight has been taking off of my shoulder's and we might get to move out of IVF Land and Surrogacy World by next winter and re-join the normal world. Where people have more than one goal, one mission, and one obsession. I have no idea how to be a well rounded person anymore. If I ever did. Surely, people will tell me that I am just moving to a new neighborhood called - ParentH...

At least that is what my "new friend" has said about me on the AMI message board in Mexico. Which just goes to show you that when it comes to message boards and comments that they are they same worldwide. I think that I might need to use the phrase as my new tagline. It is original. And I think that it is funny. If they are going to spin themselves out I will have fun watching. And if I can help them spin a little faster - all the better. It's all in good fun. I mean what are the going to do? Insult me over the internet with their words. Clearly, that will not have any effect on me - For I am a stupid gringo. The worst of them. They complain, that I am taking advantage of their low cost IVF. I just saved a ton of money by going to Mexico. How stupid can I be? It is just funny how when someone makes a post on the AMI message board that says "I have a doubt about this doctor" you have 4-5 women come on the board right away and they say - "He got me pregnant, ...

Today we hit 6 weeks pregnant and we are clearly bringing a baby home this time. I am an experienced blogger and have been following infertility blogs for a long time. I recognize the signs. They are unmistakable. You can't miss them. Or ignore them because they slap you across your face and demand your attention. Yesterday ------------- I made my first Beware list. After about 18 months of posting I have a high enough profile that someone feels that others need to be warned about me. Fortunately, I have been around IVF world long enough to know that this is a positive sign. You see, for the most part people don't kick you when your down on IVF World - Unless your name is Amani. They wait until you are successful and then they attack. Fortunately, I have my new, I am pregnant force field surrounding me. So I am unharmed by the attacks. And amazingly, In one day I have learned what Rhonda meant by the fun part of a pregnancy. Because it is REALLY fun when people attack you and ...

Throughout history man has struggled between Good and Bad. Where are you on the pendulum ? It is a constant internal battle that everyone faces. Usually, for most people their good side wins out. I most admit that right now by Bad side is winning. Gloating in his glory actually. And getting bigger on a daily basis. And there is nothing that I can do about it, but accept his victory over my happiness. You see......... Our surrogate reports that she has morning sickness. And all I can do is celebrate. There is NO thought of - I hope you get better. Just the opposite. I am waiting for the next morning sickness report with glee! Keep them coming! May I have another! Her morning sickness directly leads to my happiness. Being happy, because someone else is sick, without a doubt makes me a bad man. I must admit that today - I'm okay with my bad-self.

Other working titles are... The Cyn report*. Today we are 5 weeks, 5 days pregnant. Beta #1 at 20 days past ET was 3,334.2 Our surrogate has morning sickness everyday. We will not have a second Beta done. That's it! That's the entire report! Now you know as much as we do about the pregnancy. That is all the information we have - there is nothing else to share about the pregnancy. We just have the story of how we got pregnant to share. For us, this time less is more. Doing IVF was a project. We have old eggs. Our chances of success were low. We made a small ante into the pot and got in the game. We found a nickel and dime game in Mexico - so we could afford to enter a few hands. We might not win this pot, but hey, we have enough in reserves to enter again soon. We didn't have to go all in just for the IVF. We figured that in this game of IVF odds - the more chances we could afford to take - the better odds we would have in the long run. Then the unthinkable happened. We got ...

According to our clinic. We are #1. We are the first US couple to go to IMI that neither of us speak Spanish and we had their first surrogate from the USA as well. We had to overcome many trust issues before we chose to go for it, but it was well worth the trip. There are many US clients that have gone before us for just IVF. In fact there were 3 other couples in town the week we were there, but in all those other cases at least one of them could speak Spanish so they had a different experience than us - the language impaired couple. After dealing with our handicap - IMI is working hard to make it easier for other English speaking only couples to go to their clinic. One of the best examples is a simple phone number. When I first started to call IMI I would go into message system from hell. Basically, it was if you want this person press 1. If you want this person press 2. For the average person this would be very simple to figure out and get the right person on the phone quickly withou...

Talk about a language barrier. When I called the Mexico IVF clinic's telling them I was looking to do Surrogacy in Mexico the reply was flat out NO, we do not do Surrogacy. Then I changed my question to - I have a Surrogate from the USA - can I bring her there and you transfer into her. Still mainly NO was the answer, but I started to get some answer's of hmmmm, that is interesting, maybe. Then I got hold of IMI and their answer was: Yes! You can have a Surrogated Uterus, but we do not have any. You will have to bring your own! My immediate thought is: What is a Surrogated Uterus?????? Will the airline let me carry one in my suitcase? It sounds messy. Will it ruin my luggage? If they don't have one, where am I supposed to find one? A Surrogated Uterus sounds like a chopped up Uterus. How are the pieces going to hold a baby? This can't lead to a healthy pregnancy. Can it? I follow up with IMI for some clarification. Surrogated Uterus = Surrogate. Whew!!!! Ok, we have a ...

I was recently asked why go to Mexico for IVF and Surrogacy? Aren't there other cheaper more reliable options for surrogacy? A lot of people are going to India, why didn't you go that route? I really, really, really, looked hard at going to India because everyone kept saying that it was so cheap. I found out that this wasn't true once you added in all of the non-surrogacy expenses. You have at least two 30 hour flights to get to India. Then you have the hotel fees on the first trip of around 2 weeks and the baby pick-up takes around a month. The DNA tests cost a few hundred, plus extra fees for the birth certificate and passport. Mexico ended up being so much cheaper. And closer. We walked across the border and did our pre-testing and monitoring while staying at home. Flights were only 3 hours and costs $100 each way. We went in the winter and left the rain to arrive in 80 degree weather. We spent 7 days in Guadalajara. We flew our surrogate in from the USA after we ar...

20 days past egg retrieval OR 17 days past a 3 day transfer our Beta is in and it's strong. 3,334.2 Last time our Beta's were: Day 19 1,548 Day 21 3,096 As exciting as that number is for us we still have a long way to go before we bring home a baby. With a Beta that high we might be looking at a Mike and Mike situation.

As I started investigation the option for IVF and Surrogacy in Mexico I figured that it would be pretty easy to find information about the clinic's and the Doctor's. With all of the internet forums out there for infertility there must be a wealth of knowledge and 100's of couples to get referrals from. Boy was I wrong. I could find pretty much zip, zilch, zero. At least in terms of reliable information. I filled out one online form for "IVF in Mexico" and when I mentioned we needed surrogacy they emailed me prices for a clinic in India. After getting the email I went back to the website to see the form that I filled out and sure enough it stated clearly - IVF in Mexico. So much for reliable information. Another time, I was speaking directly with an IVF Doctor in Mexico and his suggestion was to do the IVF in Mexico and then ship our embryo's to India to be implanted in a surrogate there. Why kind of treatment is that? Then I filled out a form for the Mexico I...